The Truth Is a Casualty of Political Ads — But Let’s Look Further
My mother wrote me this morning, suggesting that I “Check out the N.Y. Times article by David Brooks: ‘How Change Happens.’”
Thanks, Mom. David Brooks is an articulate advocate for free-market economics, and this is a perfect example. No surprise here. He’s a very bright guy.
In terms of the content of this particular piece, is it possible that the Obama ad is grossly unfair? Of course! That’s what most political ads do: deliberately misrepresent stories so as to mislead voters by inspiring a misplaced hatred. No surprise here either.
In the US, we’ve elevated this type of garbage to an artform. How? With staggeringly large sums of money. The total spending on the 2012 election will top $9.8 billion, a figure about which I’d like to make two comments:
1) To a large degree, this is money that comes from corporations that now, under the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision “Citizens United,” can spend as much as they want to influence our elections in any direction they choose. Until the movement to overturn this decision with a constitutional amendment succeeds, this will only get worse, until what’s left of our democracy is gone completely and forever.
2) Let’s put this in perspective. We’re gutting our educational programs, while we’re spending $10 billion (about $3000 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S.) on demagoguery. I’m sure you agree: that’s pretty shameful.
Political advertisements are almost always lacking in depth and facts. One side tells us that raising taxes for the wealthy would significantly reduce the deficit, but they fail to display a chart or graph to indicate how much revenue could be raised that way and by how much it would reduce the deficit. The other side asserts that raising taxes on the wealthy would reduce investment thereby impeding economic recovery, but they fail to indicate why the wealthy would invest money when a depressed economy provides no incentives for businesses to expand. The political advertisements for both sides are written at the sixth grade level or below.
One politician states that her family’s military experience has given her integrity and strong American values and for that reason we should vote for her. Obviously that statement provides insufficient usable information to evaluate her positions on important issues. Her opponents aren’t any better.
When politicians are interviewed on TV, the interviewer lets them get away with vague answers instead of insisting that they properly and thoroughly answer the question.
The result of all this is that voters are inadequately informed and unable to make optimal decisions. If all the facts and proposed solutions were thoroughly explained, and if voters were willing to put the necessary effort into understanding the issues, we would all be better off.